‘She’ Makes The Difference

Sunitha couldn’t figure what difference it would make in her life to be literate. Her repeated absence from the evening class had pushed the NGO holding the adult education programme in the remote Karnataka village to offer food for her children against her attendance. Three years on, she learned to spell her name and read Kannada. But that was no solution to her husband’s constant effort to bridge the gap between his income and the family’s needs. Trying to do something on her own, she had started painting fabrics, and selling them in the nearby town. The few hundred rupees that she could make were spent on buying food and clothes for her children and she was left with nothing to buy fabrics again. Sunitha stumbled upon a relationship officer from a microfinance company a few weeks later. He briefed the village women about collateral-free loans his company offered....